Do I need a new hard drive?

[dclive]

Ok, so you know it's hardware, so can you borrow RAM from someone else?

 

[RebateMonger]

Those early reports, along with the current one, certainly point to a hardware issue. If you can't run BartPE, then that confirms it. Not being able to run BartPE also rules out a hard drive problem, although your apparent memory issues COULD have corrupted the Registry file on the hard drive, causing Windows problems, too. But the root cause is likely hardware. Probably the RAM.

 

[piasabird]

A bad power supply can cause hard drive problems. If you dont have enough power, i.e. not enough power for your system from the power supply, that can cause problems also. When your system starts from being turned off, that is when the most strain is placed on the power supply. All the drives try to start up at once creating the largest power draw on the power supply. So if at that time when your hard drive is starting up windows, there is not enough power, then that is when the corruption is likely to occur. So not having enough power can cause the hard drive to actually go bad. Another problem is that your hard drive may be in a location that gets no air flow and it just gets too hot and that causes it to ware out faster.

RAM also has to have good steady power. So the data stored moves through your memory, and or your processor. Not enough power equals loss of data. You dont have to lose it all just a bit here and there.

Actually palying an intense video game may be just as bad. That is when your Video card and your processor eat up a lot of power.

 

[AdamW81]

Originally posted by: dclive
Ok, so you know it's hardware, so can you borrow RAM from someone else?

I'm going to return the hard drive I bought and get some RAM. Hopefully thats it!

 

[AdamW81]

Gah, replaced the RAM and it still restarts at the windows loading screen. Could it be a power supply issue? It seems at this point that and the motherboard are all thats left. I'm so sick of this stupid thing.

 

[AdamW81]

Ok well it may be fixed...after replacing the memory I still had the same error as I mentioned above. With the new memory I ran the windows xp disc and was able to not get a blue screen and use the repair function. I got to the recovery console and ran chkdsk /p /r and now windows is starting up. Currently updating virus protection and other things. Hopefully this solved it...


I guess maybe the RAM went bad and somehow corrupted the hard disk so it wouldnt work until the windows repair was done.

 

[AdamW81]

Ok looks like something is still wrong. I can get into windows now but if I try to do anything, like start up internet explorer, it restarts itself. It will also pop a screen with a countdown to shutdown in 60 seconds due to some error.

 

[dclive]

That sounds like a malware infection. I assume your AV is up to date and you have a router between your PC and the internet?

"shutdown -a" will abort that reboot. Look in event log / system - what is the reason given for the reboots?

 

[AdamW81]

Well after that last shutdown its asking for a password to get back into windows when I have never used on this machine. Virus protection was out of date since I had not run this computer in a few months, its possible something jumped me right after I got it back up last night or could have been something from before. I'm doing a reformat and clean xp install, at least then I'll know if its a hard drive issue.

 

[dclive]

...and you have a router between your PC and the public internet?

 

[dclive]

Your password in recovery console is always asked - unless the drive and/or registry cannot be read by R.C., in which case it lets you right in. The password was the admin password, so when you reinstall, write that down somewhere.

 

[AdamW81]

I do have a router and as far as a password, it was just loading normally and wanted a password. If I just hit enter it said that domain adammain was not available (adammain is the computers name)

 

[AdamW81]

Ok well after a reformat I'm crashing and getting errors like crazy while installing all the drivers and such, so I guess that means we are back to a hard drive issue? Windows installed fine but I have not even hooked up online yet, just been trying to install drivers and getting errors and a couple crashes already.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: AdamW81
When I tell it to go to safe mode it spits out a ton of lines saying:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition1\WINDOWS\system32\"x"

where "x" changes each line and is a bunch of different things.

It spits out probably 30 lines like that then restarts itself.

That ton of lines is normal.
Restarting is not normal.

 

[btcomm1]

To me it sounds like your motherboard.

You tried another HD already and still had issues.